ALT Abstract: Chatterton's Commune, the Atheistic Communistic Scorcher (1884–95) was a journal that troubled the boundaries of 19th-century print culture. Ostensibly a periodical, with all the associated markers of form and content (from masthead to ‘To Correspondents' column), it might alternatively be considered an expanded broadside, a pamphlet series, or even a proto-zine. This article's close consideration of this publication elaborates upon what the periodical form enabled for Daniel Chatterton—its impoverished editor, sole author, typesetter, printer & distributor—as a tool of political agitation during the late 19th century. Focusing on the publication's materialities of print and production, its resistance to ephemerality (of both print & working-class lives), and Chatterton's aspirations towards radical communality, it argues that by pushing at the limits of freedom of thought Chatterton's Commune brings into focus the perceived power of periodicals at the end of the 19 century.